John Ivison: Rejoice, all ye royal believers

It’s an odd mission: spend three days chronicling the summer vacation of a pleasant-looking couple from London.

What to write? Not for the first time, I turned to the selective writings of W.F. (Bill) Deedes, the only man to have edited a Fleet Street newspaper and been a British Cabinet minister (not to mention being the hero of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop as “Boot of The Beast”). Mr. Deedes’s first royal experience was as a cub reporter, covering the journey of the newly wed Duke and Duchess of Kent on a train from London to Birmingham in 1934. He enquired of his editor what precisely was required of him. “You are to report rejoicing along the way,” came the reply.

And so for the next three days, I will report rejoicing on the streets of Canada’s capital. It will start when their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, arrive at Ottawa International Airport at 2 p.m. local time Thursday. Rejoicing may be more muted at the laying of a wreath at the National War Memorial at 2:35 p.m. But it is anticipated it will reach fever pitch as the couple travel along the length of Sussex Drive to arrive at Rideau Hall to be greeted by the Prime Minister and the Governor-General. And the crowd scenes are expected to resemble the Biblical Rapture when the pleasant-looking young man steps up and reads from a written text, prepared by his massive PR machine.

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You may have gathered I am not enraptured by the Royal family. It’s not that I wish them ill — as the comedian Billy Connolly once noted, the Queen should be saved and God is the very chap. It’s just I have a supreme indifference toward them, which makes it inexplicable to me why people like my brother-in-law would drive six hours from Oakville, Ont., to catch a glimpse of the Prince’s receding thatch. Frankly, if the Royal wedding had taken place in my backyard, I’d have drawn the curtains.

The soap opera of the Royal family has bypassed me in much the same way as Justin Bieber, American Idol and the Twilight novels. It’s partly being Scottish; I’m just not part of the target market.

In my salad days at Glasgow University, a hotbed of Marxism back in the early 1980s, I took a much stronger view — concurring with the Socialist Worker headline when Charles married Diana: “Parasite marries Scrounger.”

Class was the prism through which I viewed everything and in the rigid hierarchal of the British class structure, the Royals were at the apex. That analysis was not wrong but age and experience have taught that a pyramid is unlikely to collapse just because you lop off the apex. The Internet and Tesco, the supermarket chain, have been far greater agents of change in Britain than the republican movement.

So back to the new stars of the ultimate reality show. What can possibly explain why Canada is about to fall head over heels in love, besides the madness of crowds? I concede they are rich, glamorous and attractive. They have the additional advantage over any Hollywood stars of having been sprinkled with the magic fairy-dust of majesty. As the father of a little princess, it’s clear that the romance of one day meeting a charming prince retains an uncanny and enduring enchantment for otherwise sensible women.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of pomp and circumstance as much as the next man. The present is built on the past and every country needs worthwhile traditions, or risks becoming submerged by stronger cultures. I think Canada has done well in this regard, taking some of the best parts from our various founding cultures. The skirl of a marching pipe band could bring a tear to a glass eye.

In addition, we have grafted on our own traditions. For example, after 1935, the Governor-General was appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Canadian prime minister, not the British Cabinet, and the appointment has become increasingly merit-based. The incumbent David Johnston is the first to be selected by a special search group, the Governor General Consultation Committee.

Yet does the current attachment count as “worthwhile tradition”? We’re still constitutionally in thrall to a family that occupies its position because of birth and marriage.

It’s a situation unlikely to change, even though opinion polls suggest lacklustre support for the Royals among many Canadians. As my friend, University of Ottawa academic Roland Paris, put it: “What could be more Canadian than feeling tepid about the monarchy and not bothering to consider republicanism?”

The pleasant-looking young man may yet emerge as a person of talent and achievement. For now though, his biggest coup in my book was to land a multi-million-dollar Chinook in his then-girlfriend’s backyard in Berkshire, the weekend after he’d used a similar helicopter to fly to his cousin’s stag party on the Isle of Wight. No one, not even me, would argue he doesn’t have style.